I think the primary problem with SMN in Frontline is Risk vs. Reward balance

[Eorzean_username]

First off, I know it's annoying to have a million threads for random thoughts scattered everywhere, but I couldn't figure out which bigger thread this belongs in.

And please note that I'm speaking only about Frontline. Summoner in Crystal Conflict currently seems under-powered, if anything.

But after having played in Frontlines with the new PvP design for a while now, I'm beginning to see Summoner as a distinct outlier in terms of ridiculous design, even compared to other "hot" Jobs.

There are other "irritating" Jobs, but they all have a significant risk factor to whatever annoying thing they do.

White Mage

If people don't clump up, your laser is not really any more threatening than any other stun. The primary issue with Flower Laser is that it recharges too fast for how much is loaded into the action, but I think that the attack itself is... manageable, due to how Frontline murder-balls tend to be disjointed swarms, and not often end up in neatly-aligned chokepoints to knock down like bowling pins. That said, this probably comes closest to also having Risk/Reward issues.

Dragoon

The dive can be oppressive if people aren't paying attention, but it has a prolonged and obvious telegraph, forces the Dragoon out-of-position, and afterwards, leaves the Dragoon relatively vulnerable. To me, it feels dangerous but fair in most situations.

Scholar

Stacked Biolysis is oppressive, but it has a prolonged kill time and also requires the Scholar to move obviously out-of-position in most cases, especially in order to get a spread going on the largest number of opponents. It also requires applying the Biolysis on a good target in the first place, and then managing to keep them in range long enough to Deploy from them. This still has issues in Frontline, but there's at least risk involved in using it.

Ninja

Ninja is both irritating and deadly, but doing any of their deadly tricks requires the Ninja to expose themselves to risk, both from diving into the enemy line, and from animation-locking themselves. Spending Mudras on Huton/Meisui is powerful, but also sacrifices the Ninja's ability to poke and erode the enemy line with Hyosho and Goka. Overall, there is risk involved in the dangerous actions that Ninja takes, and in Frontline, Ninjas mostly punish enemy players that get overconfident or overzealous.

vs. Summoner

I think that the core issue with Summoner in Frontlines is that there is zero risk, yet maximum reward.

The range and radius on the LB are ridiculously-generous, allowing Summoner to hang around at the back of their team's murder ball, with an impenetrable wall defending them.

This makes it difficult to counterplay the Summoners at all, even with ranged control tools — even if you know what's coming — without having to move deep enough toward enemy lines to expose yourself to being quickly locked down and KO'd.

The huge, circular radius also makes both precision and enemy positioning essentially-irrelevant for the Summoner, reducing the skill requirement even further.

Then, the thing hangs around automatically picking off targets without requiring any further input from the Summoner.

The entire package seems too safe, and too simplistically-powerful, even compared to other "infamous" Jobs/actions.

Make the LB range point-blank, centered on self?

People keep suggesting things like capping Bahamut AOE target number, adding falloff, etc, but I'm beginning to feel that the primary issue is actually just the range on the Summoner LB.

If the PvP Summoner LB was centered on the Summoner and remained 15 yalm radius, it would still be a dangerous area-control effect in Frontline, but it would force Summoners to telegraph their plans ahead of time, and give the opposing teams reasonable opportunities for counterplay by forcing the Summoner to leave their insulated "nest" in order to perform a dangerous action.

This range change also seems like it would have nearly no meaningful impact on Summoner in Crystal Conflict. (Please note that when I say "nearly no", I do not mean "literally no", just that any fallout from it seems like it would be trivial to overall balance in that mode)

[BubblyBoar]

Why does everyone keep suggesting all these crazy things for SMN when the simplest answer that was given the first time this topic ca,e up was simply an AoE cap?

[Naphtha]

I have to disagree that Scholars take any form of risk to stack their DoT considering that Deployment Tactics is instant and has a massive range, I haven't seen a Scholar ever die because of that move. And even if it takes a while to kill from full hp with 4 recups, you aren't going to be hanging around in perfect condition when your alliance is fighting another, DoTs of the same type shouldn't stack at all if there are no proper ways to counter them.

As for SMN, making it point-blank would make the job even worse for CC so that isn't likely to happen, I have seen someone suggest here that the LB should give whoever is hit a buff that reduces the damage from subsequent Megaflares by like 75% or something, while it keeps summoners playable for people who are too scared to move past their team, it doesn't allow them to wipe out an entire alliance with a few LBs. That buff would be frontline-exclusive, not like it'd do anything in CC anyway.